Gouda – Yes as in the cheese.

On our way back from Den Haag on Monday for a brief visit to the Canadian Embassy *pauses to wipe small tear from eye*, Frank and I stopped in Gouda(pronounce “Ghuu (gutteral g) ow – da” not “Goo-da”) for the remainder of the day.   This cute little tourist trap of a city is located in Zuid Holland, about 45 minutes or so by train from Amersfoort.   And if you are thinking I’m just kidding about the cheese, I’m not.  Gouda actually makes the gouda cheese.  Unfortunately since we went on a Monday, all the museums were closed and the stores didn’t open until 1pm.  So we weren’t able to do some  of the typical tourist things.  But we did walk around the town and we went into one of the churches, Sint Janskerk the longest church in the Netherlands.  The stadhuis in Gouda is a beautiful intricate building that is located in the middle of the square.  They have a puppet show with music that plays on the side of the building every 2 minutes after each half hour.  The front of the buidling looks like a church to be honest, with the towers and staircase. I can’t post the video I took of the puppet show because this blog program won’t let me up load an avi file so here’s the link to my flickr account.  CLICK HERE FOR PUPPET SHOW.  The puppet show represents the granting of the town rights by Count Floris V in 1272.  It plays a little tune as it comes out and plays for a good minute or so.  We were going to walk around the stadhuis but there was a wedding going on and by the time we returned to the same area i was just ready to go home.  

We did go into a church, Sint Janskerk.  The pictures I took in there aren’t the best because well… um… I really wasn’t suppose to take the pictures, but some how magically my camera was on and my finger on the button and it was aiming towards the stain glass windows.   Sint Janskerk is the longest church in the Netherlands with a length of 123 metres.  The building started back in 1280 but in 1552 there was a fire that destroyed most of the church.  The church was used by the Roman Catholics until 1573 where was assigned to the Protestants.  The stain glass is known as “The Gouda Windows”  They show scenes from the bible and from national history.  Part of them were made between 1555 and 1572 before the church was handed over.  For more information on the church you can go here. 

After leaving the church we just wandered around the city, and pretty much anywhere you went there was a picture to be taken.  It really is a pretty city to just spend time in and wander around.  Even though I’ve been in the Netherlands for a bit now and I’ve been here many times before, I’m still amazed with the old buildings or bridges that I see around the country. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Normally I don’t buy things when we go into the different cities, mainly because you can only have so many pairs of delft clogs or Holland magnets, but this time we did get something, a Delft Gouda Pipe.  On this pipe it has a windmill scene painted on it.  It so very fragile and the stem of it is so thin that I’m afraid to snap it.  So right now it’s bubble wrapped and in a box until we get a nice glass cabinet to put some of the other little things we’ve been picking up here and there, including two old Delft tiles that came off some building somewhere in Holland.  Hopefully we will be able to get back to Gouda one of these days when the museums are open.  I would actually like to go to the cheese museum!